Unreasonable
by JustAfraidofSnakes
Summary: Technologically oblivious Clara enters the world of Aincrad. Naturally, it's more of an adventure than she bargained for. Some fluff, but no smexiness because I'm a prude. I own nothing but the story.
1. Knock Knock

The doorbell rang, interrupting the unbearable peace and quiet.

"Got it." Artie got up, being closest to the door, and disappeared. He came back with a nondescript cardboard box. He lugged it into the kitchen and left it on the floor. Out of curiosity, Angie came in to see it for herself, leaning nonchalantly against the door frame. Artie had put it down so that the side with the barely legible address was facing up. He squinted at it.

_To Clara Oswin Oswald_  
_Courtesy of ARGUS_

"Clara, it's for you."

"Really? I don't remember ordering anything." She got up and came over for a closer look. "Alright, help me get it open."

"What if it's a bomb or something?"

"Call me crazy, but I don't think it's a bomb."

"Alright, then."

The top flaps were only held together with a few strips of electrical tape and were easy enough to remove, but at first glance, the box itself seemed to have nothing inside but packing peanuts and a letter on top.

"Remember, it could be a bomb."

"It's not a bomb." Clara picked up the letter, glanced at it, and tossed it over her shoulder. "Hmm. This is a bit strange." She started digging through the irritating little pieces of Styrofoam. "Ah, found something. And it just so happens that it's not a bomb."

She pulled out a complicated-looking helmet and some neatly wound cords. Artie's eyes widened and he rushed over to help her empty the box. "Whoa, Artie, what's up?"

"Do you have any idea what that stuff is?"

"Not really, but it looks cool."

"It is. Well, it will be if the rest is in here. If it's just the headpiece, it's useless."

"I wouldn't say that." She put aforementioned headpiece on and struck a pose.

"Let me see that." Angie snatched it away and looked on the inside. Soon, she had the same expression as Artie. "Oh my god. This really is..."

"I know, right?" Artie pulled out the rest of the gear. "And everything else is here, too! Do you know what people pay for this? We could put it up for sale and make a mint!"

"Oi, no we won't!" Clara protested. "It was addressed to _me, _and if and when I figure out what it is, then _I'll_ decide what to do with it."

"She's got a point." Angie chimed in. "You didn't even look through the entire box. There could be some more stuff in there."

"I dunno," Artie tipped the box over and let the last load of packing peanuts fall out. "The gear on its own is expensive to come by. You remember how tough it was for me to get mine. Why would there be anything-"

"What's this?" Clara poked through the pile and pulled out something.

"Oh. My. GOD."

"What?" Clara whipped around and blinked.

"Clara?" Artie said slowly.

"Yeah?"

"You might want to sit down."

"I _am_ sitting down. I have been for the past, what, five minutes?"

"Point taken."

"What's the issue? Why is this so exciting to _you,_ Angie? It's a video game."

"You haven't heard?"

"I'm gonna say no and hope for the best."

"This is _Sword Art Online_."

"Okay."

Angie made a point of rolling her eyes.

Artie explained, "It's supposed to be the greatest thing since the _NerveGear_ came out, at least beta testers say so."

"Sorry, _NerveGear?"_

"Don't bother, Artie, she doesn't understand."

"Neither do you! The only reason you know what it is is because I introduced you to it!"

"Oh shut up!"

_"QUIET!"_

They stopped.

Clara crossed her arms. "I don't know if either of you is sure of what you're talking about, but you seem to know more than me, so if somebody could give me a hand, that'd be nice."

The kids looked at each other for a minute, Angie shrugged, and Artie began to speak. "Let's just get you set up. I'll walk you through it from there. If this is really legit, though, you might want to read that letter. What it doesn't tell you, we'll tell you."

Clara raised an eyebrow and plucked the letter she'd tossed away moments before off the ground, unfolded it, and started reading.

_Miss Oswald:_

_Congratulations! You have been one of the luckily, randomly chosen individuals to receive an honorary, prepaid copy of our long-awaited VRMMORPG, Sword Art Online (aka SAO). There is no record of you having purchased our NerveGear software or any of its hardware components, so it was only logical to include one in this shipment._

_Wishing you a fantastic playing experience,_  
_The ARGUS Staff_

* * *

This has other chapters. Read them, please.

Reviews make you awesome. Not quite as awesome as me, obviously, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't leave a review anyway.


	2. Please Login

"And that's all?"

"Pretty much, unless you can think of something else that I haven't had to tell you _every single detail_ about." Artie hit the Enter button and stepped back from the computer. "So far, everything looks good. Your account's set up, you've got all of the plugins, and the hardware's fine."

"So, there aren't any little buttons to mash?"

"No, not really. That's what the _NerveGear_ is for. As soon as you put it on, you control every aspect of the character: the movements, the appearance-"

"Yeah, you kind of said that already." Clara laid back in the recliner that the two of them had dragged over by the computer.

"I thought so." Artie handed her the helmet. "You ought to know the interface by now, so just log out whenever you're ready."

"And you said it's like being in a dream, operating this?"

He nodded and grinned. "What, are you nervous? You know you can't feel pain, right?"

"So what if I am?" She said indignantly, grabbing the helmet and scowling at him.

"I don't blame you. There's a reason that so many people were waiting for SAO to come out. It's probably the most realistic game of its kind."

"Whatever you say. I'm getting started."

"Don't die." Angie said as she passed the door on the way to her own room.

"I'll try my best." She shot back, earning a laugh from Artie. She slipped the helmet on and he gave her a mock-salute, which she returned.

"Tell me about it once you're back out, okay?"

"Of course." She replied seriously.

.

.

.

.

"...Link, start."


	3. The Town of Beginnings

Clara's heart seemed to throb in her ears when she opened her eyes. Everything came into focus, letting her take everything in.

Her avatar had spawned in in some plaza. There seemed to be no one else around, but then the throbbing in her ears stopped and other voices could be heard from behind her. She turned to see hundreds of thousands of other avatars wandering about. The sheer fact that so many people had bothered logging in was something for her to think about, but her attention was diverted from that subject to the rest of the area.

She took a minute to think. If this was a plaza, then it must've been in the center of town. Towns have markets, and markets have weapons. And if this game really was as thrilling and adventurous and violent as Artie had gone on to explain, a good blade or two could very well be the difference between virtual life and death.

Clara stopped herself for a moment. In all of the excitement, she had forgotten for a moment that it was just a game.

She snapped out of it and looked around. The plaza was indeed in the center of a town, and it only took a few minutes of walking and bumping into a few people along the way to find a marketplace.

As she strolled through the crowded streets, she realized that Artie had been right. As far as virtual realities go, moving around in this one was simple enough. Her avatar didn't look too bad either, but she was beginning to regret the enormous purple hair and increasingly flashy stiletto boots. She sighed and pushed her heavy bangs out of her eyes and went about the business of finding a good weapon.

.

.

.

.

She stepped out of the shop with a healthy, satisfied gait and a small smile on her face and started heading back to the plaza. Just like the rest of the participating players, Clara had received a stash of cols, which she quickly discovered was the common currency used in SAO. After a heated haggling session with the shopkeeper, she managed to get her hands on a wonderfully built crossbow for only 45 cols, as opposed to the 70 it was originally going for. Either way, she would've gotten more than her money's worth; in her own opinion, it was the best looking weapon on the market, and she should know; she'd only found the shop after searching up and down the streets of the Town of Beginnings for one that caught her eye the way that crossbow did.

As expected, the crowds were gone, and only a few unlucky late arrivals remained, sniffing around for free bonuses and pleading for handouts from passersby. A few started going to Clara, but looked away and scurried off to find something else to do. She wasn't surprised. When customizing her avatar, she'd purposely added features she considered foreboding after Artie had told her about the possibility of a duel, a case in which a tough look would be useful. After her first try, the avatar looked vaguely like the lovechild of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Cruella de Vil, so for the sake of still being humane enough to not scare off possible party members, she down-scaled the scariness to a comfortable but effective degree. The Terminator undercurrent was still there, but it wasn't all that noticeable unless the lighting was right. And with the setting sun and the ominous shadows of the oncoming night, the lighting was perfect.

The streets were emptying out, but the plaza was the complete opposite. A few parties were still trying to snag a few more people, and the ones that weren't were being badgered by outliers to allow them to join. "Safety in numbers" seemed to be the mindset for most of the people in the game, but there were several exceptions. Artie had also told her that some people preferred solo playing, and that the majority of the solo players would probably be beta testers. That was understandable; the beta testers knew more about the game than the average player, and there are some types of people that would have no problem with hoarding the information to beat the game on their own. But there had to be people that didn't think like that, right?

Clara ignored all of those potentially negative thoughts to refocus on her main objective; find and join a half-decent party. She may have been a novice at best when in came to VRMMORPGs, but she was clever, and a fast learner, too. As she was going over all of these thoughts in her head, she didn't immediately notice the figure running toward her.

* * *

I can't do long chapters, dammit. I just can't.

On a lighter note, now that my minimal writer's block is over with, here's a shout-out to the 6 awesome people who were following this story at the time I posted this: CTYerFOREVER, Chiyo the Silver Witch, Dark Meow Meow Kitten of Doom, Karmidee, darkponyD, and liana . reichlin.


	4. DRAMABOMB

I thought this might be a good point at which to tell everyone that there will be no shipping of the Doctor and Clara. In all honesty, I think it's weird to ship the Doctor with anyone. My apologies to anyone who was hoping for that. There will be other canon ships (Krito/Asuna, for one), but nothing else for now. Thank you for reading this fairly important A/N and enjoy the chapter. Things are about to get weird (Not in the pervy way, though, sorry).

* * *

Clara turned. It was Artie, but he wasn't running towards her like she would've expected, since he seemed to be trying very hard to get her attention. Now that she noticed, no one else was moving either. They seemed frozen completely, expressions halted, movements cut short, even a few having food halfway in their mouths. The system must've been lagging after so many people logging on at once, but that wouldn't explain why Clara was still able to move. Something was wrong.

Instinctually, she ran towards her charge, . "Artie, what's happening?! Why are you here?!"

"It's the game, Clara, you have to log out, NOW!" His voice was frantic, but his face was blank, and his hands hung limply at his sides. It was at that moment that she realized that Artie's appearance was exactly like it was in the real world, as was his voice. After soaking all of this in and realizing what he said, she tried to open the menu.

"I can't, the system's acting screwy! What's going on?! Why is everyone frozen but me?!" She failed to notice that she was talking faster, her voice getting higher in pitch as the panic started sinking in.

"It's real, Clara."

"What-" She whirled around, and the Doctor was standing there. Her dear old Doctor. But he seemed to be in the same state as Artie: emotional voice, immovable face. "How did you get here? More importantly, WHY!?"

"The game is real. You need to get out **now**." He was adamant.

"Of course it is, how else - Oh." The truth hit her like a penny off the top of the Empire State building. "Wait, WHAT?! How on Earth - "

"Not exactly. I'll explain later. Right now, you need to open the menu and get the hell out of here." The Doctor warned her. She barely picked up on the panic in his voice as Artie picked up where he left off.

"We - that is, the Doctor and me - we hacked this thing, and we're here, but only as projections. Like the NPC's, only it's not that we're unplayable, we just can't play."

"We're not able to get you out, you can't escape on your own, and neither can anyone else without getting killed." the Doctor started. "No matter what anyone says, you have to stay in the Town of Beginnings. Don't accept any duels, quests, anything. If you die in this place, you die for real. Think of a paintball arena with real guns instead of paintball guns, but no one knows they're shooting to kill except you."

"Then I'll tell the others. I'm a good talker, I can convice them not to go fight."

"No, you can't." Artie shot that idea down in a heartbeat. "The system's rigged to immediately kill off anyone who tries to alert the others ahead of time. The only reason you're not dead is that we overloaded the servers. They can't see anything but a load of goofy avatars running around. No offence."

"None taken. Wait, what do you mean by 'ahead of time'? What's gonna happen now?" She was panicking less and interrogating more now.

"You'll find out soon."

"Doctor, we're running out of time."

"Just stay in town, don't pick any fights, and you'll be alright. I promi-" His voice was overlapped with static for a moment before its clarity returned. "Sorry, we're running out of time. Just do what I say and you might live. I swear."

There was a click that echoed in her ear before the Doctor and Artie disappeared. A few more seconds passed, and everyone was back in motion, seemingly unfazed save for a bit of dizziness.

.

.

.

.

.

.


	5. Bacon of Death

"Out of all the tops in stock, why'd I get _this _one_?" _Clara growled at the empty streets as she ran. She recognized that there were bigger issues at hand, one of which she was dealing with, but she couldn't help but voice her concerns now that some of them were taking effect; the erratic breathing that began once she started her little sprint made the now undersized sports bra/tank top combination clench her torso and ribcage so tightly into itself that Clara felt like she was stuck halfway in and halfway out of a meat grinder. That wasn't the only surprise wardrobe malfunction; her boots were now at least three sizes out of her comfort zone her coat was choking her almost as badly as her shirt. The idea to make her avatar nigh on skeletal was beginning to backfire. At least her pants and gloves still fit in a reasonably comfortable way and her bow wasn't much of a bother.

She unzipped the coat out of pure desire for fresh air and picked up speed, knowing that everyone else would be raiding the market again and it would be best to at least get a room for the night before the stampede arrived. Seeing what looked like an inn up ahead, she slowed her pace. 'I might not live all that long on the front lines,' she thought, 'but at least I'll be sleeping in there instead of out here.'

.

.

.

As expected, the shops were bombarded with customers within a few minutes. Clara managed to snag a better-fitting set of clothes and a pretty nice room, though the latter came at a fairly high price. "I'm still in one piece," she thought aloud to herself as she tossed her new jacket over the desk in the corner of the room, kicked off her boots, and flopped down on the bed. "That's good."

It wasn't until she felt how wonderfully silky the sheets were that she realized how truly exhausting everything was. She was asleep in seconds.

.

.

.

.

A series of thudding noises woke her back up.

Clara rolled out of the bed and onto her feet, ignoring the onset fit of dizziness and the ring in her ears to answer what she assumed was an impatient knock at the door, only to find nothing. She frowned and shut it back.

She almost went back to the door when the sound came again, but then realized that the noise was coming from the opposite direction. Anything or anyone making that much ruckus in the dead of night couldn't be good. "What on Earth is doing that?..." She opened the window on the wall opposite the door and got her answer.

Skittering over the streets was a crowd of boars, growing as more and more of them came running in as if called to battle. That alone would've been worrisome if not for the fact that they were ripping the town apart.

According to that nifty little handbook a beta tester had been nice enough to give to her, a boar on its own couldn't stand a chance against someone who knew how to use his or her weapon, but a gathering this big could be lethal. When threatened, one of them would chase the target relentlessly until one of the two was dead. For a mob of its level, the boar was very persistent. That left one explanation; someone had voluntarily provoked the boars into chasing them into town. They were attacking so many different buildings either because they were remarkably stupid or each group had been attacked by a different person. Clara looked again and realized that there was a pattern to each group: four big ones and about a dozen smaller ones. These weren't random attacks; they were _demolition squads._

She had no clue of whether or not the Doctor was aware of any of this, but she had little doubt he would've encouraged what she was about to do.

* * *

_Time for an author's note._

_It doesn't seem like much right now, but it means a lot in my book that people have liked this story enough to encourage me to continue it. As a thank you, rather than giving a shout out to the people following this (which I'm gonna do anyway), I'll do something a tad different. The first 5 - yes, you read it correctly - the first 5 people to comment on this chapter will see their FC in the upcoming chapter. If you don't have one, just give me the name of your favorite character from anything else and they'll make an appearance. Again, there are only 5 available spots, so take them while you can get them._

_Happy reading._

_Oh, almost forgot: Shout Out Time~  
Here's a big-ass thank you to _**CTYerFOREVER, Chiyo the Silver Witch, Dark Meow Meow Kitten of Doom, Dr. Zelda soulcat, Eggs in a Beaker, Epic Timelady, Karmidee, KittyKat145, Rachetblast, Superanonymouscarrots, Whovian57821, darkponyD,** _and_** liana . reichlin. **_I love/despise/have neutral feelings toward every one of you._


	6. Author's Announcement

For the foreseeable future, this will be on hiatus.

It's nothing personal, you guys, it's just a matter of circumstances. I don't mean offense to anyone.

I'm posting this on my two most popular stories _(Perspective_ and _Unreasonable_) since there are people reading them that might care to read this announcement, so don't be surprised when you see it in both places.

Again, I don't mean to be insulting anyone by uploading this. I just need to take a bit of a break from the writing process to deal with other things. I'm not committing suicide or anything, don't worry. I'll be back soon, anyway.

Remember kids, drugs are bad, don't eat yellow snow, and if there's a black van on the street outside your house, by all means get inside.

Until next time,  
_JustAfraidOfSnakes_


End file.
